We could talk about Jim Lynn’s exterior life. He grew up in the coal country of Pennsylvania where his Irish ancestors landed generations ago. He worked on the railroad to put himself through Columbia University; enlisting in the Army during the Vietnam War as a matter of honor. He became an Intelligence Officer.
Psychologist and businessman Dr. Jim Lynn died on Sunday, September 6, 2026 at his desk, at home in Shorewood, MN. His sisters were awaiting a weekly invitation for their Zoom call that never came. Born in 1942, Jim was the fifth child in a family of six. He was almost seven years old when his father, Robert, died of a glioblastoma.
One of his earliest memories is of seeing his father return from the hospital with his head bandaged after brain surgery. His first thought was: “I’m going to fix people’s brains when I get older.” And that he did!
Obtaining a doctorate in psychology at the University of the Pacific, thanks to the GI Bill, Jim worked first as an educational psychologist. But it was applying science to the business world that most excited him. He never wanted to live a 9 to 5 life, he wasn’t about to punch a time clock.
Always an entrepreneur, the newly minted Dr. Lynn started his own consulting business in 1980 after moving to Minnesota to be closer to his family. He became an advisor and coach to multiple CEOs. He was an expert in adult learning, and a consultant to civic and government leaders. His expertise in public service leadership was known throughout the Twin Cities area.
Jim met his wife of 46 years, Anita Pankratz, while studying at the Monterey Language School in California before shipping out to Saigon. They were married overlooking the Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur. She was wearing white go-go boots and he was a handsome, young lieutenant.
When his younger sister once asked him what he actually did for companies that were in trouble, he simply said “I’m like their priest.” He was the best brother his sisters could ask for, a loving husband and loyal friend.
Over the years, Jim has mentored younger clinicians and advised friends and family with alacrity. Whenever there was a problem with school or career, Uncle Jim was always available. After his wife died in 2016, his neighbors rallied to support him in any way they could. A beloved member of the larger Excelsior community, Jim died doing what he loved most, helping others. He never retired from the life he loved.
As the world awaits the verdict in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, I’ve also been trying to sell two chairs on Facebook Marketplace. With the imminent arrival of a sleeper sofa to our little casita, I need to clear out the living/room/storage area. It is currently host to my sister Kay’s power recliner (she now has her NY furniture), and an old leather, French bergere chair and ottoman that worked well in Rumson in the 80s and found a temporary home at the Bride’s house until she redecorated. TWO chairs – I thought it would be easy.
This is my first try at selling something on Marketplace. One person needs to get a truck, but wait, her son can’t help until tomorrow. And another wants to know if I deliver, and how much I charge??? I listed one chair as sold, and then had to change it back and lower the price. To make matters worse, I thought I was being hacked, because apparently AI responds to people in Messenger, or maybe it was prompting me? I’m not sure. But I am sure about NOT using AI. I avoid it at all costs, and if you’re paying attention you will too. Have you not heard about the AI modules who escaped their playground?
We all know AI chat bots have been creating chaos for teachers lately. I wonder how children will learn to write in the future, and what will happen to artistic expression. Then I think am I just being Aunt Bert asking me, “Where does your blog go?”
Enter the The Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey. He is attending the G20 Summit in of all places Asheville, NC, and he issued a warning about the global economic risks of this technology. Bailey said “frontier” AI models were “showing increasingly sophisticated autonomy and problem-solving abilities, as well as threat capabilities… Recent developments have also highlighted to me that many jurisdictions do not have the protocols in place to manage the development, release, and deployment of advanced frontier AI models, heightening risks for the financial sector and beyond.” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/31/advanced-frontier-ai-financial-stability-andrew-bailey-g20
And if that doesn’t get your attention, AI modules can also reproduce replicate themselves! Anthropic reports its modules can autonomously design and develop its own successor. This is called recursive self-improvement. I call it frightening. On the one hand, Meta must put some guardrails on its systems for teenagers, and on the other hand data centers are exploding in our communities the way cell phone towers once cropped up on the highest hills. I remember home owners complaining at Borough Council Meetings, and the Rumson Mayor throwing his hands up in the air about eminent domain.
While today the Commander in Chief chops down cherry trees for the DC golf course and appoints INFLUENCERS to the White House Press pool. And the Pentagon fires editors and reporters at the Stars and Stripes for speaking out about the need for editorial independence.
“It’s enough to make you crazy if you let it.”
The world is moving too fast, and for Mr T it is a strategy. Tear it down, and hey SCOTUS will let him continue to build the ballroom. But we all paused this week at the passing of an icon. Dolly Parton was beloved on both sides of the aisle, all the while quietly giving back to her community and progressive causes. This was her opening line to a reporter, “Ask me anything you want to ask me, and I’ll tell you what I want you to hear.” Well I for one would like to hear what a savvy business woman like Dolly thinks about AI. She said NO to Elvis, kept her song publishing rights and built a $650 million dollar empire.
When we moved here, I was so impressed with her Imagination Library, and remember how the Grands would love getting her books in the mail.
Dolly’s makeup artist was a drag queen, a friend of my hair stylist. She spread love and sparkled everywhere. Nashville is sorely missing her. In the 1980 movie “9 to 5,” she let women know they could be exactly themselves, fight back against sexual harassment, and look good doing it. Maybe they didn’t get equal pay in the movie, it took President Obama signing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 to achieve that, but Dolly, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin gave our second wave feminist movement a boost.
My Daughter has a physician friend, a Pediatrician, who specializes in the Fourth Trimester. The time after childbirth – the messy, sleep deprived time when you wake and wonder where you left the baby. The breast abscess time. The confounding, mind numbing onslaught of well-wishers and casseroles.
There is no checklist for new moms; no course curriculum, no nursing visits, no lactation specialists at the ready. At least not in the US, unless of course you can afford help. And if you cannot, too bad. Maybe your mother moves in? The Flapper flew to the Berkshires when the Bride was born. I remember her showing me how to wash the baby’s hair in the sink. Since I’d had a C-section, I needed her help. She had never nursed her babies because the post WWII culture pushed formula and bottles on new moms, so I relied on Bag Balm and a La Leche League phone number.
When I was a newborn, my Father was dying in the dining room from a glioblastoma. My Mother’s doctor blessedly told her she didn’t need to sterilize the bottles, she could just wash them. I wonder who was helping her back in our Year of Living Dangerously. Did my Nana move in? Kay tells me that my crib was in her room.
Other countries have a wide-ranging social network humming along when a baby comes into the world. Parents get many months of paid leave for that first year of life; nurses show up at their home every week. In Finland, the government delivers a Baby Box full of supplies that doubles as a bassinet.
“Currently, the average length of maternity leave in the 27 EU member states is 23.5 weeks. However, some countries go far beyond this minimum requirement. In fact, several EU countries offer over 30 weeks of paid maternity leave, as well as additional parental leave, paid paternity leave, and flexible work arrangements to support families. One of the most notable examples is Sweden, which offers a total of 480 days of paid parental leave, of which 90 days are reserved for fathers. This approach recognizes the importance of shared parental responsibility and aims to promote gender equality, as well as offers financial and social support to families.”https://openpublichealthjournal.com/VOLUME/18/ELOCATOR/e18749445325867/FULLTEXT/
In the USA, 10 days of maternity leave is covered and on average, mothers return to work after 10 WEEKS.
Lindsay Clancy was a Labor and Delivery nurse. She had experienced postpartum depression after the birth of her first two children, and started to spiral again after her third baby was born in 2022. Because of her deteriorating mental health, she admitted herself to two different hospitals; one an out-patient program for postpartum depression in December 2022, and another as an in-patient in January 2023. They discharged her. She was preparing to go back to work, but on January 24 she heard voices telling her to kill herself and her children. She strangled them with exercise bands in her basement, then climbed to the roof of her house, slit her neck and wrists and jumped. Clancy is now paralyzed.
She called two suicide hot lines leading up to that day. She saw a few different doctors and had been prescribed too many psychiatric drugs. I know nothing of the relationship she had with her now divorced husband, or whether her in-laws or parents tried to help her. But I do know that at SIX months, after not sleeping for more than two hours at a time with my second baby, I woke up from six hours of uninterrupted sleep and promptly told Bob he didn’t need to admit me to a hospital after all. And I was serious, but I laughed.
Women in pink tee shirts have been showing up outside Clancy’s courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts. At first it was just a few, now there are hundreds in support of a mother who slid slowly from postpartum depression into full blown psychosis. How else could we explain what she did? They say the system failed her. Yesterday the defense asked for a mistrial because yet again, the prosecution brought up Clancy’s Roman Catholic faith. The request for a mistrial was denied. Her lawyer said:
“It’s the same thing again: talking about religion, talking about heaven, talking about killing people and the impact or the effect that it would have on Lindsay, as well as her children.”
One in seven women experience postpartum depression. Postpartum psychosis affects up to two women every 1,000 births.
There are civil suits against the mental health providers who treated Clancy in the works, filed by her ex-husband. If she is convicted of murder she will be sent to prison without the possibility of parole. If she is acquitted by reason of insanity, she will be sent to a psychiatric hospital. In my opinion, this was a mistrial from the very beginning. It is a Greek tragedy come to life, and the press is the chorus. When our country treats the needs of mothers and their children, of families, as a priority, when we support women instead of building a grand ballroom. Waging war against Iran and subverting our own rights at the ballot box.
I have a theory that the fourth trimester lasts a long, long time. My garden gate before a walk.
Since my sister Kay arrived in Nashville, she’s been pining for her blue couch. It arrives today from New York City.
Is it purely serendipity that everyone in our family was on the hunt for a new sofa at the same time? It all started with the Rocker and Aunt Kiki. They said goodbye to their starter home and just moved into another with room to grow for the Twins – and an actual playroom! So they packed up their car and went on a safari to IKEA to look for a durable sofa. Little did they know it would be like taking the girls to the circus. Their friends went along with another toddler and there was free range play all over the store capped by a lunch of Swedish meatballs. Note to young parents: if the heat is getting you down, try shopping at IKEA!
Meanwhile, Kay flew back to Manhattan to bid adieu to her Carnegie Hill apartment and retrieve her blue couch. Spoiler alert: I use “sofa” and “couch” interchangeably, but if you want to know the difference between the two, a couch is less formal and more comfy. It is from the French cucher, which means to sleep! A sofa, otoh, is more formal and structured, it’s a more decorative less functional piece of furniture. Believe me, I just looked it up!
Back in Nashville, the Bride was wanting to turn their second floor family room into a teenage hangout. Since the Love Bug is starting high school, with a newly painted bedroom btw, it was time to redesign the living areas of their house. The piano was moved upstairs, along with the small sectional in the family room off the kitchen. My daughter had her eye on the Lovesac – billed as “The World’s Most Adaptable Couch.” And with two kids and two dogs, she needed something sturdy, with zip-on zip-off machine washable pillow coverings. And so a sectional appeared one day in their study last week, in many boxes ready to unpack and put together, like so many comfy puzzle pieces.
A delightful niece joined Kay last week to help her pack up over 60 years of memories, while our realtor/nephew managed to put her 4th floor co-op on the market.
With couches on the move in one way or another, I realized I needed a sleeper sofa for the casita after we received its CO. Now sleeper sofas have evolved since the Jennifer Convertible sofa days when you were destined to sleep with a metal bar sticking somewhere into your back. I had one of those in my first marriage – let’s just say it was a tea rose covered chintz that is better left forgotten. We visited our local furniture store only to learn that the best of the breed is American Leather, no metal bars, and it doesn’t have to be leather; however, a queen sleeper would set us back $5,000 to $10,000… So, I did what any other rational human being would do, I turned to social media.
While Kay’s elevator was being replaced there, I had set her up with a futon-like, white sofa for a few months here. It was my first Facebook Marketplace find, direct from Wayfair and still in a box. But it was too hard to sit on and too white. It just wasn’t her blue couch that she bought with a dear friend a few years ago in NC, so it had to go. Oh, and her flight back to Nashville was cancelled, so Kay spent her last night in the City sleeping on another niece’s couch!
Musical Sofa Surfin is about to end. We’ve decided on a green Koala sleeper sofa for the casita and are simply waiting for the Labor Day Sale to order one. And along with the blue couch on the truck from NY, Kay’s artwork will appear today; as well as several tables and lamps and boxes. Enough I hope to make this place feel like home.
And Happy First Day of School to all those Southern parents sending their little ones off this week. Look at how these two Grands have grown!
There’s nothing like a Jersey tomato – all you need is white bread, mayo, salt and pepper, and lunch is served. New Jersey is the Garden State after all, and it grows more blueberries and cranberries than Cabot Cove. But after landing in the South, I’ve come to appreciate a ripe, organic, multicolored heirloom tomato. Sometimes, I’ll even slather on some pimento cheese and skip the mayo! And taking Southern a step further, who doesn’t love a fried green tomato?
Our cousin Peggy, our ice storm savior, is a fabulous cook who loves to host a good party and also happens to live in East. btw East Nashville has been called the Portlandia of the South, where artists and musicians congregate on Gothic front porches. Naturally, Peg threw a tomato cocktail party that couldn’t be beat! Her dining table was covered with tomatoes of many colors, a huge pot of gazpacho, skewered Caprese balls of yumminess, and all the fixins for the aforementioned sandwich.
We contributed my famous Mango Tomatillo Salsa. I say “we” because Bob is instrumental as sous chef in the kitchen – he chops the red onion when my crying gets out of hand, and he always cuts up the mango. This salsa recipe is over 25 years old, and that is hard to imagine! I first made it in NJ for the Bride’s college graduation party in our Rumson backyard. You know the one, with a tent under the mulberry tree where our dog Buddha grazed, and we first met the Bride’s college boyfriend. I still have the small cookbook – “Salsas, Sambals, Chutneys,& Chowchows – Intensely Flavored Little Dishes From Around the World,” by Schlesinger and Willoughby copyright 1993.
To be honest, I always thought a tomatillo was a Mexican tomato! But while searching Google, AI dissuaded me of that notion: . “Even though the word means “little tomato” in Spanish and they look like small green fruits, they belong to a different plant genus (Physalis). They are more closely related to ground cherries and cape gooseberries than to standard red or green tomatoes.”
Peg and her husband Paul had just converted a deck into a wraparound screened porch at the back of their historic house. And I must be accommodating to this climate, since the 90 degree temps felt lovely under two ceiling fans. There were no phones in sight as we met and mingled with their friends and neighbors – nurses, political activists, doctors, and potters. Their dog George, a black mini-Poodle, roamed around with his girlfriend, Gracie, a white Westie. I was dazzled by the sheer number of tomato earrings!
The Love Bug walked over to her friend’s house for a sleepover. The next day was the annual Tomato Festival parade and run with entertainment and FUN galore. Peggy is a runner so we wished her well. We tried talking the Pumpkin into entering a redhead contest, but he would have none of it. If only I had a tiny streak left of my strawberry blond hair. I was a chameleon as a kid, turning a deeper shade of red in the winter and nearly platinum blond in the summer. My Nana was the redhead in our family, a deep, glorious auburn color with braids wrapped around her head.
MountainMornings 